MCAST – Page 2 – Frankie Inguanez

Tag: MCAST

MCAST IICT Expo

Posted on 2019-07-05 by Frankie

MCAST IICT just held its EXPO on Tuesday 2nd July and it was a great success. A great team made up of students, lecturers, management and administration supported by our sponsors came together to share the achievements within our institute.

The event was well received and covered extensively within the media, a real motivational booster to our students and a validation of the great work being done.

During the same event a parallel EXPO was held by the Institute of Electrical Engineering. Currently the ICA Festival is being held by the Institute of Creative Arts.

Proud to be at MCAST IICT in such interesting and positive times with great and talented individuals (students, lecturers, technical staff, administrative staff and managerial staff alike).

MCAST IICT Research

Posted on 2019-07-05 by Frankie

On the 12th June 2019 a series of presentations were delivered by my 2nd year and 3rd year IICT students to share their research advancements with 1st Year BSC students and lecturer’s alike.

Damiano Nicastro – Brand Identity Tracking via Audio Streams

Damiano Nicastro, a 2nd Year B.Sc. Software Development student presented his research in Brand Identity Monitoring using Audio Streams.

Irisann Agius – Clustering Raspberry PI devices for advanced Processing Power needs

Irisann Agius, also a 2nd Year B.Sc. Software Development student presented her research in Clustering Raspberry PI Devices for Advanced Processing Power needs which is a growing need due to the growth in research being experienced at MCAST IICT.

Axel Curmi – Automated Academic Achievement Verification via Blockchain and Image Processing

Axel Curmi, a 3rd Year B.Sc. Software Development student, presented his research in Automated Academic Achievement Verification via Blockchain and Image Processing. The first part of this research was presented in a Springer conference last year and exhibited at the Delta Summit 2018.

Ricardo Sciberras – Automated Traffic Congestion Estimation via Public Video Feeds

Ricardo Sciberras, a 3rd Year B.Sc. Software Development student, presented his research in Automated Traffic Congestion Estimation via Public Video Feeds. The first part of this research was presented in the ICCE-Berlin IEEE Conference last year.

Eman Sammut, also a 3rd Year B.Sc. Software Development student presented his research in Blockchain Based Car Park management system for Automated Vehicles.

MCAST @ Latvia 2019 – Erasmus+

Posted on 2019-05-212020-06-10 by Frankie

From the 28th April till the 4th May, I had the opportunity to visit Saldus Tehnikums in Latvia as part of the Erasmus+ staff mobility, on behalf of MCAST. It was a really great experience seeing how VET programs are created and run, namely the Fire Fighting program and Cyber Security Diploma.

During my visit, I also had the opportunity to deliver a couple of lectures highlighting research currently undertaken at MCAST IICT. There are some really talented students and exceptional staff such as Aiva Kiseniece who is the Project and Development Planning Specialist at Saldus Technikums. Latvia is a very beautiful country and I highly recommend the visit.

PingFIN X @ MCAST, Malta

Posted on 2019-04-21 by Frankie

For the fifth consecutive year MCAST IICT has hosted PingFIN, an International e-Payments Workshop organised by Odisee and currently in its tenth iteration. Also, co-hosting this event, in their respective campuses were Colchester Institute, UK and Fachhochshule FH Salzburg, Austria.

This event has become a staple in MCAST’s calendar and interest by our sponsors is growing, which this year included MITA, eSkills Foundation Malta, Microsoft Innovation Centre Malta, ccBill EU Ltd and RS2 Software PLC.

This year we had the highest attendance yet, with 24 local students and 15 visiting students and thus the change of venue. During the four day event from the 1st to the 4th of April all students were split into groups to work on the SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Recall Process using Oracle PL/SQL.

It most definitely was a unique experience for our participants working as a team, networking and learning new skills, whilst also getting feedback from professionals among our sponsors.

This was an unforgettable experience and I look forward for next year. I thank our sponsors, Kevin Picalausa from Odisee, all staff from MCAST for making this possible. Special thanks to my team: Alan Gatt, Daren Scerri, Luke Vella Critien and Robert Abela for their invaluable support. Finally and most of all, thanks to the students for taking our offer and making this experience special.

Vioside @ MCAST

Posted on 2018-11-07 by Frankie

It was a real pleasure and proud moment to see MCAST IICT alumnus, Chris Borg, Nicole Borg and Steve Scerri who have formed Vioside Ltd., deliver a talk to our B.Sc. 2nd year students. Their story and talk was very motivating and encouraging, inspiring our young talent to work on what they really love.

Luke Benjamin Cassar, delivered a presentation about his research project on Augmented Reality in Catering, which he had the opportunity to presented in Germany, earlier this year, at an IEEE conference.

A heartfelt thanks on behalf of MCAST IICT for accepting this invitation, taking time from your work, to motivate our students.

Luke Benjamin Cassar
Chris Borg, Vioside Ltd.
Mark Anthony Farrugia, MCAST IICT

MCAST @ Delta Summit

Posted on 2018-10-04 by Frankie

The Delta-Summit is currently being held at the InterContinental Hotel at St Julians, Malta, attracting blockchain specialists, evangelists and academics from around the world. Lots of interest and great opportunities. MCAST is showcasing four of its B.Sc. second year projects, mentored by myself, who focused on blockchain technology.

Axel Curmi has researched a Blockchain Based certificate verification platform, permitting an individual to verify the validity of an academic certificate in possession. This research has also been presented at the 1st Workshop on Blockchain Smart contracts hosted by Fraunhofer FOKUS at Berlin, during a Springer Workshop.

Eman Sammut has researched a Blockchain based car park management system, with a community based approach to it. Nigel Cumbo has researched Vehicle logbook verification using Blockchain.

Finally, Jerome Mizzi has research a Blockchain based e-voting system. His research was also published in the D-Line Journal of Technology.

We have received a lot of positive feedback on these second year B.Sc. projects which will be further researched in their final year of their studies for their dissertation. Many have queried whether MCAST offers Blockchain courses, which I am happy to say that some modules are being introduced in our curriculum which you can check-out in our prospectus online.

IrisAnn Agius and Axel Curmi
Eman Sammut
Nigel Cumbo
Jerome Mizzi

MCAST @ Science in the City

Posted on 2018-10-01 by Frankie

Science in the City was a great activity and MCAST had a stand showcasing some of its leading projects. Namely, Michael Joe Cini one of my B.Sc. second year students, demonstrated his second year project, an Augmented Reality recreation of lost heritage such as the Dwejra Azure Window.

Presented 3 MCAST academic research at ICCE-Berlin, IEEE Conference

Posted on 2018-09-07 by Frankie

Really proud of my three students, Darren Cilia, Luke Benjamin Cassar and Ricardo Sciberras for presenting their work at the ICCE-Berlin IEEE conference. It was a great academic networking experience, with leading researchers in various fields such as deep learning, IoT and gaming.

Darren Cilia presented his second paper this year on Typing Biometrics, sharing our results in Passive User Authentication using Support Vector Machines with an error rate lower than 1%. Our first paper was presented at ISMS 2018 in which we published the data gathering application and dataset.

Luke Benjamin Cassar, the first MCAST Multi-Media Software Development student to have his research published, presented our work on the use of augmented reality within the catering business.

Ricardo Sciberras, most probably the youngest author being still a second year BSc student progressing to his third year, presented his research project on traffic flow estimation via public IP camera feeds.

It was a real honor and pleasure mentoring you all and seeing you present our work at a prestigious conference. Also, very proud for being the first students, together with Axel Curmi and Jerome Mizzi to give MCAST IICT the academic recognition at an international level.

Second Blockchain research by MCAST IICT published

Posted on 2018-08-25 by Frankie

The second research on Blockchain technology by MCAST IICT has been published. This research is titled “Blockchain based E-Voting System”, co-authored by Jerome Mizzi and myself, in it we explore the use of Blockchain technology as a viable solution for a national e-voting system. This research is still a work in progress and will be continued in the next academic year. Jerome is a second year B.Sc. (Hons.) Software Development student, progressing to his third and final year. This research has been published in the second issue of the ninth volume of the Journal of E-Technology, edited by Prof. Adrian Florea from the University “Lucian Blaga” of Sibiu.

3 MCAST IICT research papers accepted for IEEE conference

Posted on 2018-08-06 by Frankie

Would like to announce that MCAST IICT has had 3 academic papers accepted for an IEEE conference in, Berlin. The papers are the works of Darren Cilia, Luke Benjamin Cassar and Ricardo Sciberas, all under my mentorship. Currently preparing for the ICCE-IEEE conference in early September.

Ricardo Sciberas is currently a 2nd year software student progressing to his final year and has researched traffic flow rate estimation using public IP camera feeds. He is one of the first 2nd year students at IICT to have their research accepted at an international level and will have it exhibited on the 3rd September.

Luke Benjamin Cassar has just finished his final year as a multi-media student and has research the use of augmented reality in the catering sector. This research will be presented on the 4th September. He is the first multimedia student to have his research accepted at an international level.

Darren Cilia is an MCAST alumni and this is his second paper to be accepted. Earlier this year we presented our first paper at the ISMS 2018 international conference where the dataset and prototype were published on public portals. In this paper we are presenting the excellent classification results for our passive user authentication research using keystroke dynamics. This research will be presented on the 3rd September.

That brings a total of 5 academic papers by MCAST IICT students, under my mentorship (the second paper was presented in July by Axel Curmi and myself), being accepted this year at international conferences. Really proud of my students and to be part of MCAST’s academic growth.